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If you have been paying attention, you will notice that lately there has been a growing interest in certain circles about empathy. It has, thankfully, moved out of the privacy of the mental health consultation rooms and neuroscience research studies and into the classroom, the boardroom and the bedroom. In fact, there really is no human interaction that will not be better because the participants are attuned to empathy and its place in the engagement… more >

We would be hard pressed to imagine a God whose love is anything but kind, generous, empathic, and welcoming. No doubt, we know he hates injustice, arrogance, abuse, and any number of other social or personal ills we might easily name. But we are not as seamlessly able—or willing—to imagine that God would ever say “No,” as an explicit function of his loving us… more >

If so much goodness and beauty initially emerge in the places we first learn how to learn, it would be just like evil to use shame as actively as possible in those very venues. If in the home, church, and school, we are trying to form people into artisans of all kinds, it only makes sense that shame will not be far behind in the educational process. What are we to do? more >

To be vulnerable is not something we choose to be. It is something we are. What creates so much of our heartache is about how much we work—mostly automatically—to not be, or at the very least to pretend we should not be vulnerable… more >

Shame is what warns us that that connection is threatened. But the way shame works, much like how nausea warns us of impending emesis, we only get the nausea without ever throwing up. Imagine what that would feel like… more >

Curt Thompson, M.D., is a psychiatrist in private practice in Falls Church, Virginia and founder of Being Known, and author of Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices That Can Transform Your Life… more >

If you have been paying attention, you will notice that lately there has been a growing interest in certain circles about empathy. It has, thankfully, moved out of the privacy of the mental health consultation rooms and neuroscience research studies and into the classroom, the boardroom and the bedroom. In fact, there really is no human interaction that will not be better because the participants are attuned to empathy and its place in the engagement… more >

We would be hard pressed to imagine a God whose love is anything but kind, generous, empathic, and welcoming. No doubt, we know he hates injustice, arrogance, abuse, and any number of other social or personal ills we might easily name. But we are not as seamlessly able—or willing—to imagine that God would ever say “No,” as an explicit function of his loving us… more >